The transition from Ruth to this had been too abrupt.

Ranged side by side with the bold, defiant eyes of the girl before him, he saw Ruth's clear, luminous eyes, like a saint's, gazing at him out of unplumbed depths of purity.

And, somehow, he felt within him a stir of power.

He was better than this.

Life meant more to him than it meant to these two girls whose thoughts did not go beyond ice-cream and a gentleman friend.